First World War (Commemoration)

Robin Walker Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), particularly given his comments about the four proposed woods. Many of us will be able to picture photographs and Paul Nash’s paintings of the destroyed trees and their stumps. The proposal is an appropriate part of the commemoration process.

It is always a privilege to listen to a good maiden speech: we certainly heard one today, and I welcome the hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) to his place.

I am sure that most of us have listened to many excellent BBC programmes and heard many moving accounts from the men who served. I want to add to those accounts. No account is more poignant to me than the diary entry I am going to read now. It is dated 17 August 1914 and is from the diary of my great-uncle Lieutenant George Ward of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, who was killed in action on 24 August 1916. His cousin, Gordon Clarke, wrote to his brother—my grandfather—who was recovering from serious wounds received earlier in the battle of the Somme, that he had seen George a couple of days earlier and he was in good spirits. The date of that letter was 24 August, the day he was actually killed. There are so many stories like that, and Gordon was killed four days later.

My great-uncle wrote:

“Europe is plunged into an awful war, what the issue will be no one can say. What waste of human life.”

He also expressed concerns about the problems of the slums in Britain and the need for money to be spent there, and questioned whether the war would be just and sensible. For a very young man, he was prescient in his concern about the size and scale of what was about to happen. Nevertheless, even with his misgivings and concern for the poor in Britain, he felt that it was his duty to serve. He had been a member of the Congregational Church and the Boys Brigade and had been involved in adult school evening classes.

My great-uncle also wrote to his parents to tell them of the great conflict in his soul about joining up. He felt that he should be away with his fellow countrymen fighting a noble cause, which was difficult because his parents were staunch pacifists. In fact, my great-uncle George’s name is not on the local war memorial because his father would not allow it to appear. That is a cause of enormous sadness to me, but it was very strongly felt and that is why his name does not appear.

In my great-uncle’s letter to his parents, he said:

“Could we have reasonably remained neutral without prejudice to our national honour? I think not!”

That was the view of an ordinary man at the start of the conflict. Clearly he had his fears and he queried the jingoistic comments in some newspapers. He wrote about not wanting

“to crush that beautiful Germany of Beethoven, Schubert, Martin Luther and Schiller but we do have to smash the military caste.”

That was his view at the time and it is an interesting observation.

My great-uncle is buried near Albert, in the Peronne road cemetery, which I will visit this summer to pay my respects. I add my thanks to all those involved in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for the work they do. I think that the speech of the hon. Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) will stand the test of time: people should read and take note of it, because it was fascinating on many levels.

My grandfather was blown up on the Somme on 12 July. He came back very badly injured and could never get life insurance as a result. These were the days when post-traumatic stress disorder was not recognised. How did he cope with what he had done and what he had seen? It is very interesting and it is only as I grew older and when I was an adult that I understood some of his behaviour. He used to take himself off to his allotment to be by himself. When family were present and people were chatting, he would not involve himself in the conversation. He would go off and play the piano in a very solitary way. He never, ever talked about his experience. I think that was the only way in which he could manage and deal with the horrors he had seen. Everyone present probably has a similar family story. We also need to remember those on the home front, including the women who worked in the munitions factories, and the terrible risks they faced at the time.

Today we talk of urgent operational requirements, but the speed with which the Government moved following the outbreak of war and the way in which cities such as Plymouth responded was astonishing. We should remember that in those days, they sent telegrams rather than text messages. Local historian Derek Tait notes that by 9 August the Government had already taken over control of the railways and all regular schedules were suspended.

Five of the 14 Plymouth-based ships were sunk during the battle of Jutland, including HMS Indefatigable. She had seen action in the Dardanelles, but was sunk after her magazine exploded following two or three direct hits. Only two of her 1,019 crew members survived. When we think about the losses experienced in the trenches, let us also not forget the huge loss of life at sea or, indeed, the short life expectancy of pilots flying for the Royal Flying Corps in those early planes that seemed to be held together with nothing more than string. Flying boats also took off from Mount Batten. Plymouth is a very rare thing indeed—a place where all three forces have been based simultaneously. The city of Plymouth will, of course, be holding many commemorations. The city museum is running a series of exhibitions that I hope people will go along to.

HMS Warspite was launched in 1913 from Devonport, where she began her distinguished career as the most decorated ship in the Royal Navy. Plymouth was one of the most important ports and that remains the case today. Of course, our merchant navy also went in and out of Plymouth, Portsmouth and elsewhere. We should take time to consider the losses that it incurred and the bravery of those men who sailed and kept this country supplied.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on the excellent speech she is making. Has she visited, as I have, the fantastic memorial to the merchant navy by the Tower of London? It is very moving—it lists the ships sunk and the loss of life on each of them—and does she agree that it is a very special memorial for a nation that has always depended on the sea?

[Alison Seabeck]

Indeed. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. I urge people who come to London and visit the tower to go to see the memorial, particularly this year or during the coming four years.

Interestingly, the war coincided with the amalgamation of three towns—Plymouth, Devonport and Stonehouse—into what we now know as the city of Plymouth. It was as Plymouth that citizens rallied around to support the troops and to care for the injured. Some 120,000 soldiers mobilised out of Plymouth in just four days between 5 and 9 August. Like many other cities, we had Pals regiments.

I again thank the Plymouth Herald and local historians for drawing my attention to the Plymouth Argyle players who enlisted. Jack Cock earned the military medal for bravery in the field. At one stage, he was pronounced missing presumed dead, but, fortunately for his family and for the club, that was not the case. He went on to score 72 league goals, as well as to play for England. I am sure that the current Green Army are very proud of their club’s players, and of their bravery and sacrifice.

Many schools in the city were converted for a range of uses, including as hospitals, and the city saw the return of injured Australians from the dreadful battle of Gallipoli, as well as the opening of a hospital specifically for US servicemen. Troops from across the empire—from Canada, India and New Zealand—set off from Plymouth, and we should remember the sacrifices of those men alongside those of other allies.

Such a wealth of information on which to draw gives us a very varied picture of what happened and of how individuals responded to the dreadful challenges they faced and the sights they witnessed. I was therefore a little surprised to read an article sent by my great-uncle, Lieutenant Ward that was printed in the Romford Recorder, because he gave it very much warts and all; there was no censorship. He described feeling happy to be alive but went on in graphic detail to describe the shelling of his trench and wrote about a private

“wild-eyed, white and haggard looking, plastered with mud asking for urgent help for the ‘Durhams’ who have got it.”

He also talked about the bravery and calmness of the stretcher bearers, and particularly about a Corporal Swain, a man from Cornwall. It is therefore interesting that when I was on a walk along the cliffs at Pentire point in Cornwall, I came across a plaque which reads:

“For the Fallen

Composed on these cliffs, 1914”.

The words by Laurence Binyon have already been mentioned, but they are worth repeating:

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) on a passionate speech, although I disagree that the Government have struck the wrong balance. As we have heard from those on the Government and Opposition Front Benches, a careful balance has been struck in these commemorations.

I join in the tributes to my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) for his excellent maiden speech. I met him some time before he became a candidate in Newark, so I looked forward to him coming to Parliament. He struck a good tone in his comments, and I must admit to a twinge of jealously, not at the warm reception that he received in Parliament, but because he was talking about fighting to improve his rail services, and his are more than twice the distance from London than mine in Worcester, although the journey takes about half the time. I look forward to working with him to promote the interests of business and fight for fairer funding for schools in both our counties.

It is truly an honour to speak in a debate on such a significant commemoration, and on an event that has been variously described as a catastrophe, the great war, and, for some years, the war to end all wars; as so many people have said, that sadly turned out not to be the case. The commemorations of the centenary will cover a sequence of events that profoundly changed our nation, each of our constituencies, and the world. As constituency MPs, almost all of us will take part in Remembrance Sunday services, and for me, it is one of the proudest but most humbling moments to take my place each year in Worcester cathedral for the moving service of remembrance. In recent years, those services have attracted ever larger crowds, and those at the Cenotaph service outside the cathedral now dwarf the packed congregation inside. Later I will touch on some of the local aspects of commemoration that will take place in Worcester, and my recent visit to Commonwealth war graves in Worcester.

First, however, I will focus on one of the most positive aspects of commemoration, which is the way it can bring communities together, heal the wounds of the past, and remind us of the things that unite us, rather than those that divide us. The Minister touched on the importance of the commemorations to Ireland, both Northern Ireland and the Republic, and the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) made an excellent speech on those issues. As Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Northern Ireland Office and someone who attended my first British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly earlier this year, that point has been impressed on me very clearly.

It is truly remarkable that last year the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland stood alongside the First Minister and the Taoiseach for a service of remembrance at Enniskillen, and the Minister of State joined Ministers of the Republic of Ireland in laying wreaths at both Glasnevin and Islandbridge. It is perhaps more remarkable still that last year’s Remembrance Sunday service in Belfast was attended by the Sinn Fein Lord Mayor of that city—the first time in which that party has formally taken part in the event.

Those steps toward reconciliation are welcome, and I commend not only the excellent speech of the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley, but his work in bringing the exhibition “Fields of Battle—Lands of Peace” to Parliament; it echoes the theme of reconciliation through remembrance.

It was good to see Her Majesty the Queen on her visit this week to Northern Ireland laying a wreath at Coleraine and launching the programme for the Royal British Legion’s commemorations in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. I am glad that that programme also includes the service at St Anne’s cathedral in Belfast and the Woodland Trust work in County Londonderry. It is especially appropriate that the programme of commemorations has funded the extensive restoration of HMS Caroline, which, as Lord Trimble said yesterday, is the last surviving veteran of the battle of Jutland.

It is welcome that the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly is planning on holding its next plenary in Ashford, so that Members from the Dáil, this Parliament, and all the other Parliaments represented in that body can travel to the first world war battlefields, pay tribute at the Island of Ireland peace park, and read the pledge inscribed on a pillar in that park. If the House will excuse me, I think it is worth while reading into the record the wording of that pledge:

“From the crest of this ridge, which was the scene of terrific carnage in the First World War on which we have built a peace park and Round Tower to commemorate the thousands of young men from all parts of Ireland who fought a common enemy, defended democracy and the rights of all nations, whose graves are in shockingly uncountable numbers and those who have no graves, we condemn war and the futility of war. We repudiate and denounce violence, aggression, intimidation, threats and unfriendly behaviour.

As Protestants and Catholics, we apologise for the terrible deeds we have done to each other and ask forgiveness. From this sacred shrine of remembrance, where soldiers of all nationalities, creeds and political allegiances were united in death, we appeal to all people in Ireland to help build a peaceful and tolerant society. Let us remember the solidarity and trust that developed between Protestant and Catholic soldiers when they served together in these trenches.

As we jointly thank the Armistice of 11 November 1918, when the guns fell silent along this western front—we affirm that a fitting tribute to the principles for which men and women from the Island of Ireland died in both World Wars would be permanent peace.”

Amen to that.

I would like to return to matters closer to home, and in particular to my constituency of Worcester. Alongside the privilege of attending each year’s Remembrance Sunday service, I have also been honoured to go each year as MP to the city’s Gheluvelt park and attend the commemorations that take place there of a battle that may sound unfamiliar to many in this House, but which is firmly inscribed in the honours list of the Worcestershire Regiment.

On 31 October we will mark the 100th anniversary of the battle of Gheluvelt, part of the first battle of Ypres in 1914, in which the 2nd Battalion the Worcestershire Regiment advanced against overwhelming odds and, despite other forces retreating all around them, stopped the Germans’ advance and thwarted their attempt to break through the lines. That intervention was crucial. The cost of the attack was terrible: in a single day, the battalion lost 187 men, including three officers. Field Marshal Sir Claud Jacob said of the action:

“Let it never be forgotten that the true glory of the fight at Gheluvelt lies not in the success achieved but in the courage which urged our solitary battalion to advance undaunted amid all the evidence of retreat and disaster to meet great odds in a battle apparently lost”.

To this day, one of the finest parks in Worcester commemorates that action. I will be there this October, along with the Royal British Legion, Worcestershire’s regimental association, the Mercian Regiment and other units that fought alongside it. The commemorations of the bravery of the Worcesters on that day will rightly be balanced with remembrance of the tragic loss of life.

Growing up in a small village in rural Worcestershire, I was struck by the fact that the only names on our little war memorial in Abbots Morton were not from big battles such as Ypres or the Somme, but from somewhere that, as a child, I would have found difficult to find on a map—Mesopotamia. It is worth remembering, as so much focus is on the western front, the wider scope of the great war, and the fact that thousands of British and imperial soldiers and sailors fought, suffered and died in far off places such as Iraq, Gallipoli, Salonika—as my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) pointed out—Tanzania and the south Atlantic.

For much of the great war, the Worcestershire Yeomanry were deployed, as were the Glamorgan Yeomanry, which the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) mentioned, in what we now call the middle east, fighting the Ottoman empire. For all that most people of my generation have seen “Lawrence of Arabia”, it is important that we should not allow the further-flung elements of the war to be forgotten. I am pleased that the Worcestershire regimental museum contains displays about the war in the desert. In these days when we closely follow such worrying news from that part of the world, we should remember the role that Britain played in shaping the modern middle east, understand that interventions did not start in 2003, and bring a greater historical appreciation to our understanding of the region. We should also remember that alongside the more recent sacrifices that our armed forces have made in Iraq there were previous generations who fought, sweated, suffered and died in that land.

One Worcestershire hero who fought the Ottomans was Private Fred Dancox, who went on to become the city’s one and only Victoria Cross winner. Little is known about his life before the war, but he fought at Gallipoli and, having survived the horrors of that brutal battle, he earned eternal fame by his actions back on the western front at the third battle of Ypres, better known as Passchendaele. His citation for the Victoria Cross reads:

“For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty in attack…this man entered the ‘Pillbox’ from the rear, threatening the garrison with a Mills bomb. Shortly afterwards he reappeared with a machine gun under his arm, followed by about 40 enemy. The machine gun was brought back to our position by Private Dancox, and he kept it in action all day. By his resolution, absolute disregard of danger and cheerful disposition, the morale of his comrades was maintained at a very high standard under extremely trying circumstances.”

That citation was published in the London Gazette on 23 November 1917. At that time, Private Dancox had been granted leave to return home to Worcester. A civic reception was prepared, and the story goes that the mayor and council were even waiting at the station to meet him. Tragically, he was never to arrive. On 30 November 1917, Private Dancox VC was killed in action. A few years ago, I attended the unveiling of a plaque to the memory of Fred Dancox, and it is appropriate that our new TA centre in Worcester has been named in his honour.

The programme of commemorations in Worcester will include the 150th anniversary of our Territorial Army unit, 214 Battery Royal Artillery, based at Dancox house, which also played its part in the great war, and on 16 August Worcester will witness a military parade to celebrate that milestone. We will also celebrate the life and achievements of one of the city’s most famous sons, the Reverend Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, better known as Woodbine Willie. This pastor served with distinction as a forces chaplain and brought comfort to the troops over a number of years, doling out cigarettes in a way that may be frowned on today but was clearly much appreciated by the soldiers of the day. Although he joined up with conviction to serve his country, his experiences at the front convinced him of the futility of war, and in its aftermath he became a passionate pacifist and Christian socialist. His legacy is well remembered in Worcester, and it is right that the programme includes exhibitions on his life and work, as well as a service at our cathedral in his memory.

Another Worcester character who will be remembered is Vesta Tilley, who became known as “Britain’s best recruiting sergeant”. This locally born music hall actress used her controversial performances, dressed as a soldier or sailor and singing songs such as “The Army of Today’s All Right” and “Jolly Good Luck to the Girl Who Loves a Soldier”, to drum up recruits, and sometimes enrolled volunteers during her performances. I was recently very moved to hear, as part of the BBC’s excellent commemorative work, a recording of a war widow whose husband was recruited from under her nose at one of these performances. An exhibition about Vesta Tilley’s life and work starts this month and will run into September at the Commandery.

Today at the Commandery, which hosted Charles I’s headquarters at the battle of Worcester, the door is being opened to the Worcester public so that they can bring their war stories, photographs and memorabilia, in order to make sure that they are included in the county’s major project, Worcestershire World War One Hundred, one of the most significant Heritage Lottery Fund programmes outside London.

The vibrant arts and cultural scene in Worcester is also playing its part. Last Friday at our Guildhall, under Woodbine Willie’s portrait, I attended the launch of the Worcestershire literary festival and heard excellent poems on the theme of “a prelude to war”. This year’s Three Choirs festival will host a performance of Britten’s “War Requiem”, talks on how the war influenced Edward Elgar, and a specially commissioned piece by the German composer Torsten Rasch that is to be called “A foreign field”. Our museums will be hosting special exhibitions, and our schools will be running projects to research local history related to the great war.

I join my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) in congratulating the Commonwealth War Graves Commission on the work it is doing to promote understanding and visits to the war graves in our city.

My generation is perhaps the last that will have had any living contact with the generation that remembered the great war. I recall my grandmother on my father’s side telling me what it felt like to be bombed by a zeppelin in east London, and my mother talking about how, in the 1960s, her grandfather still felt the effects of having been gassed. The passing of the years and the generations should not stand in the way of our understanding or our remembering the heroism and the sacrifice, the triumphs and the tragedies, and the long-term consequences of the first world war. I congratulate the Minister and the shadow Front Benchers on setting out such a fitting and appropriate programme of commemorations, and I am proud that Worcester will be playing its part.